Kenwood: January 1995.

In January 1995, Andrew Hawkins, finding the gates at Kenwood open, took the decision to chance his luck and headed up to the house to see if he might be allowed to film the exterior. Lucky, really, because what he discovered was a building site, overseen by an amenable Irish foreman who agreed to give Andrew and his friend the grand tour. Thus, Andy's camera recorded the last gasp of the house as John would have known it - shortly thereafter the kitchen, sunroom and garage were demolished and rebuilt, and the first floor master bedroom and attic were gutted and reconstructed.
I will try and put the footage on the blog over Christmas, but in the meantime here, with a minimum of verbiage from me, are some screencaps and a bit of context.

ENTRANCE HALL - The doorway visible here led to the kitchen. Note too the large mirror, still in place:

KITCHEN - Split level, an upper "breakfast terrace" and lower cooking area:

Note the floor tiles, some of which were still evident:

LIVING ROOM - Note the ceiling:

DEN - Colour scheme still in place, 25 years later:

Back to the entrance hall, this time facing the main stairs to the upper levels:

MASTER BEDROOM:

EN-SUITE BATHROOM:

ATTIC: Again, compare the photo of John with the situation in January 1995; clearly the same:

ATTIC LIVING ROOM - Next to the studio room, John pictured here above. This room was where Pete Shotton recalled helping with the general concept for Eleanor Rigby:

ATTIC BEDROOM - Home at various times to Fred Lennon, Pauline Lennon, and even John and Cyn whilst renovation was going on in 1964:

ATTIC TANK ROOM - Home to John's semi-feral cats:

ATTIC CORRIDOR - A glimpse of the studio room at the far end:

SUNROOM EXTERIOR - I'm still not sure if this is a completely different structure, or simply the old sunroom with a new roof and fireplace installed:

SUNROOM INTERIOR:

POOLSIDE STEPS:

GARAGE 1:

GARAGE 2:

And there we have it, for nau. As mentioned, at some point before long the footage itself will appear here.
Finally, I'd like to express my thanks to Andy for his generosity in allowing me to use his film. Cheers, mate!

Kenwood: living room - 1965/1968 etc.

A couple o' pics that are new on here; the one on the left from 1965, the one on the right from December 1968, and both of them, co-incidentally, showing the same corner of the big living room.
Here's how it looks these days - the wall was knocked through in the '90s to create a second entrance from the hall:

The '65 pic has done the rounds recently, being part of a new Curvebender collection of Henry Grossman's unseen Beatles stash...and pretty amazing it all sounds too; lots of Kenwood and Sunny Heights material, and much more besides.
Sadly, for whatever reason they have priced it at a level unknown to most mortals, and so way beyond the means of the vast majority of yer people. A real shame that most will never even see a copy, let alone be in a position to buy one:

Many thanks to Sara from Meet The Beatles For Real.

Kenwood: living room & den - variations on a theme.

Here's the living room in 2006, shot from the dining room door. Compare with 1965:


The door on the opposite wall leads to the den (as was):


This room, at least, recognisable from its previous incarnation. Compare with 1968:


The famous (round these parts) photos of the Fool taken, o' course, in this location. But that radiator wall has been knocked through to make a door:


I suppose there is a limited number of ways to sensibly arrange a room (and if there's one thing I am synonymous with, it's the sensible arrangement of rooms), but what I find mildly diverting is blah blah blah...

Kenwood: living room - 16th June, 1965.

On the above date, a "meeting" was apparently held in the living room at Kenwood to discuss Ringo's vocal contribution to the Help! album. The above pic shows the "discussion" reaching its climax, with Act Naturally the winner, upon which some form of revelry involving some form of dancing was engaged in:


Good old noble (other) Alf. This one's been on here before too, but here it is again, for reasons of etc:

Kenwood: summer, 1968 - part 4.

According to Cathy's account, this is a picture of the living room... and so it is, though I was thrown a little at first, because the pic doesn't really resemble any of the previously seen shots. The lithographs have gone, to be replaced by that odd looking wooden wall cupboard, similar to the one in the dining room (in fact, it may even be the one from the dining room, transplanted to the living room); the hard couches, too, offski. Obviously, therefore, a lot of renovation has gone on... which God knows, should be no surprise by this point.
The clue lies in the doorway - although everything else has changed, it hasn't. Compare with the shot from 1965:


So Cathy would have been standing beside the fireplace, looking through to the dining room. The same spot from 2006:


There are one or two other familiar things, though. John has left the Ramirez guitar lying about. Most remiss of him:


And the round table, which later ended up in the sunroom:


Also note the "famous" black carpet, a magnet for cat shit, apparently; again Cyn and her mum must have rolled this up (the carpet, not the cat shit)(actually, the carpet and the cat shit) and taken it (and just about everything else in the room) away with them, because by December, the floorboards are bare.
It's another fascinating, and intimate shot, affording a glimpse of the interior house, long gone, John.
Many thanks again to Cathy and Lizzie.

Kenwood: living/drawing room, 1965.

Not very revealing, but another verifiable Kenwood pic all the same, from the large living/drawing room, in 1965. You can just about see one of the lithographs in the background:


Connisseurs of trivia may note that the couches in the drawing room, chosen by Ken Partridge, were, apparently, fantastically uncomfortable. They were eventually given to Ringo for use at Montagu Square, though presumably not as a punitive measure.

Sunny Heights: then & now, part 3.

The living room at Sunny Heights, then as now, leads onto the back terrace; it, at least, appears to have endured:


If you are anything like me, you look at these iconic images and think, "Yes, that's all very well indeed, but what lurks behind that window/door/copy of the Times?"
In this case, thrillingly, a dining room:


And apropos of nothing and everything, the feedback at the start of It's All Too Much, as rendered on the remasters, is a thing of awe at volume.

Cavendish Avenue: living room, 1969.

Interior pictures of Cavendish Avenue are fairly rare, but here's one of John and Yoko in the living room, in 1969. This room, overlooking the familiar back garden steps, was where the Beatles met before recording sessions or other Beatle business pre-Apple. On March 21, 1967, it also saw a visit from the Emperor of Eternity... apparently.

Kenwood: living room 2006 & 1968.

Before bothering with the amusing "Yawn" comments, I know these have been on before. However the 2006 photo is uncropped for the first time, and gives a complete view of that window seat.
Although the skirting radiator is gone and the ceiling has been painted white, this is one bit of Kenwood to have survived more or less intact since 1913 when the house was built.
(Yawn.)

Kenwood: more living room.

Another original 1913 feature which has survived is the external entrance to the ground floor living room. In 1968 it was out of use, being covered by a bench (or half a bench - or half a bed, or whatever it was). The other door that can be seen in the black and white pic leads through to the den:


The area was captured in the 1968 Austrian film, as well as Joe Baiardi's video from 2008:


As we have seen, when John & Yoko moved back into Kenwood at the end of November 1968, the living room was transformed into a storage space for their various art exhibits - including those from the Half-A-Wind Show at the Lisson Gallery in 1967. John's contribution to that had been the Air Bottles, in which the other halves of the exhibits were stored "conceptually". Paper labels bore the name of the half-a-whatever it happened to be:


The bottles sat on the window shelf/seat in the living room at Kenwood, again an area captured on film in '68 and '08:


Incidentally, not many of the exhibits from that particular show survived the moves from Surrey to Berkshire to the upper west side, though one that did is the following, if looking a little careworn these days:

Kenwood: living/drawing room, part 1 - world o' shelving.

Whilst it is true that John spent much of his time at Kenwood in either the sunroom, the attic studio, or the bedroom, the impression given by many Beatles books is that the other rooms were never used; which is not true. Cynthia was often to be found in the den, the dining room would be used when the Lennons were entertaining guests - and so would the main living/drawing room. This room is well documented, but the corner to the left of the large fireplace has been a bit of a mystery up to now. What was to be found there? The answer, and I am sure you are going to be astonished by this, was...shelving.
The Beatles Book reports that in June 1967, "on one side of the fireplace were three turntables. On the shelves near the record player were arranged several of John's gold discs". Sure enough, blog reader Eric Nernie has sent in a small picture of the shelves, taken at the end of 1968.
By that point, the living room looked (superficially, at any rate) very different from the John & Cynthia era. When finally vacating the house, Cynthia and her mother emptied the room of all furnishings and decoration. John & Yoko then moved back in, and used the space to house various items previously exhibited by one, other or both of them. The large white disc from the "you are here" exhibition obscured the grand fireplace, which might suggest that Cynthia had also appropriated the colour television previously housed there. The shelving and the "you are here" disc can be glimpsed in the December '68 footage from the living room, on either side of Yoko's white chess set.
The living room dates, of course, from the original construction ca. 1913, and retains a lot of original features - the wooden floor, the roof beams and side panelling were all there in the beginning, and are still there now. The one major bit of renovation occurred, inevitably, in the mid-90s, when the shelving area was demolished and knocked through to construct a parallel entrance, with steps leading up to the front hall:


With the shelving gone, and the fireplace exposed, it is almost impossible to relate the December '68 images of this area to the '06 shots, but nevertheless this is where it was: